End users have more communications choices than ever before. A number of prominent technological trends are currently afoot (e.g., more computing devices, more online video services, more Internet video traffic), and these trends are changing the network delivery landscape. A cable modem termination system (CMTS) is a piece of equipment, typically located in a cable company's headend or hub site, which is used to provide high speed data services, such as cable Internet or Voice over Internet Protocol, to cable subscribers. In order to provide high speed data services, a cable company will connect its headend to the Internet via very high capacity data links to a network service provider. On the subscriber side of the headend, the CMTS enables the communication with subscribers' cable modems. Different CMTSs are capable of serving different cable modem population sizes—ranging from 4,000 cable modems to 150,000 or more, depending in part on traffic. A given headend or hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) hub may have between 1-12 CMTSs to service the cable modem population served by that headend or hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) hub.
The FIGURES of the drawings are not necessarily drawn to scale, as their dimensions can be varied considerably without departing from the scope of the present disclosure.